Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk said that the firm would spend over $500 million this year to expand its supercharging network.

It comes after its entire supercharging team was recently disbanded and oil giant BP’s electric charging division, BP Pulse, said it was keen to “aggressively” expand its US charging sites following Tesla’s announcement.

Other EV charging players such as EVgo and Revel were also interested in potential acquisition opportunities.

Posting on social media platform X, Mr Musk said: "Just to reiterate: Tesla will spend well over $500M expanding our Supercharger network to create thousands of NEW chargers this year. That's just on new sites and expansions, not counting operations costs, which are much higher.”

It was not clear whether the company intended to abandon its upcoming projects altogether when the announcement of the supercharging team layoffs was made. 

In the US, Tesla has approximately 25,000 supercharging ports in all 50 states, according to the US Department of Energy. Globally it has over 50,000, including Europe.